


The True Value of a Pound

by obfuscatress



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, NO murder/violence, POV Multiple, a meditation on capitalism, commercial cannibalism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-07-13 12:13:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16017686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obfuscatress/pseuds/obfuscatress
Summary: The elegance of the system is like nothing Dr DeAnna Wilkes has ever seen. Before this body arrived on her slab, it used to belong to a living person – albeit one that was exceptionally vulnerable to death and very likely grappling with a financial predicament of sorts. There are only three kinds of people who end up here: those with dependents who didn’t have the foresight of taking out life insurance before being diagnosed with a fatal condition (silly, considering the cost); those who wanted money not for their families but for themselves, to live out their last few weeks or months as a person, limited by the fact that insurance payouts are a strictly post-mortem transaction; and, perhaps the ones she pitied most, those who lived in modern day squalor, for whom the expenses of dying were a far greater financial burden than their life could ever be worth.





	The True Value of a Pound

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ThatgirlnamedEleanor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatgirlnamedEleanor/gifts).



> The rating on this is due to a combination of explicit cannibalism and moderate sexual situations in later chapters.

**[I. Eye-Stalking]**

 

_“Tiger, tiger on the wall, when are you finally gonna maul them all?”_

Rohan reflexively raises his eyebrows, a concession rarely made, and looks up to find Constance Lee beaming at him. She isn’t rocking on her heels, but it’s a close call. Even her stillness has a vibrato quality to it. He sighs and wonders, for the fourth time that night alone, if inviting her wasn’t a mistake, and the damn woman has only just arrived.

Not having forgotten his manners, he greets her with a polite, “Good evening,” like a _normal_ person would, but Constance refuses to take the hint, barrelling on with: “Who’s it going to be tonight?”

“I am afraid I don’t know what you are referring to,” Rohan says, his customary calm always forced with her. Something about her rubs him the wrong way – a commendable ability in itself – and he’s never quite managed to convince himself it isn’t also the very thing that attracts him.

“C’mon,” Constance pushes because she can, “I didn’t get dressed up for nothing.”

Fourteen months ago, at her job interview, she’d been as meek as anything, but back then Rohan had only intended to hire an assistant, and in that capacity she still holds her tongue. As the protégé she’s morphing into, she’s a viper.

Mistaking his indecision for irritation, she says, “Perhaps you would like a glass of secco, sir?” in her most appeasing tone and the formality feels is entirely off when she mockingly called him _Ro-Ro_ in the mortuary just the other day.

How she manages to juggle a composed professional persona with the slick informality so intimately woven into her very being mystifies him, and sometimes her effortless code switching between the two unsettles him. Shaking his head, he says, “I asked her here for an induction, not a work function. What I want is a consultation,” he says, asking her to drop her assistant’s mantle, and Constance’s eyes light up.

She positions herself next to him so she can peer at his open catalogue, a spread of ceramics unfolding before her. It doesn’t make any sense given what she knows he’s here for, but she doesn’t comment on that, merely asks: “Which one?”

“Her,” Rohan replies, eyes flicking to a lady in green who’s been circling the glassware table for the past fifteen minutes. She’s young and pallid in a way that suggests she isn’t a buyer even without the sticker taped to her chest labeling her as one-fifty-two.

Constance studies the page until she finds the profile — date: 1789, category: 114 (5), price: 850£/unit — and hums thoughtfully. “Matching set of eighteenth century floral vases, huh?” she asks as if that means something to her.

Rohan smiles, a quick curl of the lip on the side she can’t see, and hands her his phone with the same profile open in the online VIP catalogue.

When she gets her hands on the medical files, Constance’s breath hitches. _Severe congenital heart defect_ : she could die any minute or live another twenty years, but by the looks of this woman, she’s too frail for statistical heroics and the sooner seems far more likely than the later. Rohan had practically started salivating when he’d first laid eyes on the description.

Constance says: “Eight-fifty a pound is still pricey.”

“They could ask for more,” he argues and licks the pad of his finger to turn the page of the antiquities catalogue. “It isn’t a bargain, but this _particular_ condition _is_ rare.”

Constance watches the young woman lean over a table to inspect a medallion, a pearl string of vertebrae materialising down the back of her dress. “She’s a little on the malnourished side, don’t you think?”

“Yes, that was my concern as well.”

“’Was’?” she asks, always quick to pick up on the meaning of other people’s tongues. “Sounds like you’ve made up your mind.”

“You don’t approve?” Rohan asks, careful to maintain an even tone.

“I didn’t say that,” Constance says and swiftly puts herself back in her place by adding on a firm, “Sir.”

It would be so easy to forget she’s his assistant, if only she’d let him, but she never does. Rohan can’t decide whether he is grateful for the boundary for keeping him from losing sight of what really matters or if he’d prefer her to slip up, just the once.

One-Fifty-Two’s satin sleeves shimmers under the spotlights illuminating the hideous sixteenth century jug she’s desperately trying to like.

 

* * *

 

 

The elegance of the system is like nothing Dr DeAnna Wilkes has ever seen. She makes her way deeper into the facilities of the clinic, her first week on the job still making her fidget nervously with the new key fob for fear of losing it. It’s not what she envisioned when she started the biopractical component of her PhD under Dr Armstrong’s supervision four years ago, but her life at large seems to be a series of unforeseen events that, somewhat inexplicably, have led her astray from academia to become the highly qualified successor of a criminal.

It isn’t the first time she’s been complicit in what she’s about to do and yet, the thought of seeing this through on her own sends her heart into a flutter. By the time she reaches the mortuary, her hands are sweating ice, but the stress eases as soon as she sees the black bag laid out on the table because she knows exactly what to do with this, what her role here is. Dr DeAnna Wilkes wipes her hands off on her lab coat and reaches for the zipper at the foot of the corpse.

Before it arrived on her slab, this body used to belong to a living person – albeit one that was exceptionally vulnerable to death and very likely grappling with a financial predicament of sorts. There are only three kinds of people who end up here: those with dependents who didn’t have the foresight of taking out life insurance before being diagnosed with a fatal condition (silly, considering the low cost); those who wanted money not for their families but for themselves, to live out their last few weeks or months as a _person_ , limited by the fact that insurance payouts are a strictly post-mortem transaction; and, perhaps the ones she pitied most, those who lived in modern day squalor and for whom the expenses of dying were a far greater financial burden than their life could ever be worth.

But the how’s and why’s don’t matter in the end. In this system, personal freedom and bodily autonomy are just another commodity one can bargain for. Luckily for DeAnna, human beings have the distinct advantage of being viable merchandise both in life and death, and her scruples about doing harm end where people’s lives do. Pulling on a pair of gloves, she denotes the toe tag on her procedure sheet and gets to work like any other good middleman, focused only on her own task.

She doesn’t concern herself with the before: A corporation offering hoards of cash to terminally ill people in exchange for their bodies after death. ‘Medical research’ they call the cause and medical research they do; there simply isn’t a clause on how much of the body that applies to. Five pounds here, ten pounds there – she’s only lightening the load a little. What’s left still makes for various prosections and a bag of 206 bones two years down the line.

She doesn’t stray towards what comes after her either. She’s never seen the face of a man who eats another, but she’s scribbled the order number of one on a parcel and stuck it in the fridge for safe keeping, wondering whether what she’s holding in her hands is still someone’s _vastus medialis_ or already someone else’s slow-roasted dinner.

Using the same saw, she severs an arm for the medical students and sets half a leg aside for a cannibal.

 

* * *

The congregation pours into the bidding hall with furtive, distrusting glances exchanged left and right as they file into their chosen seats.

Out of the roughly two hundred people present, only twenty-nine actually have an agenda. Seventy-four have been instructed to bid at random to satisfy their insurance contract, only a handful of them actually for sale tonight. The rest of them, most of them already looking rather listless by now, are various factions payed to fill out the seats: students, the unemployed, retirees – all looking for the nominal fee that will get them through the rest of the month.

Rohan decides on a spot in the centre right of the third row – camouflaged in the crowd but still sitting in the good seats – and eyes the morphing population in the room for any sign of Constance, whom he lost to the loo twenty minutes ago.

Instead of finding her, his eyes fall on Professor Zinfandel in the aisle over, a rare sight at auction these days. An avid fan of third party proxy bidding (no doubt in part due to his erratic presence in the country, but mostly to disguise his pattern of interest), he hasn’t been sighted at an event in two years, and Rohan wonders who was tempting enough to make the man lure the man out into the open.

It’s always been a risky move for Zinfandel, to bid in public, his poker face is virtually non-existent; he has the sort of old-school, appreciative gaze that leaves no doubt about his intentions – except, of course, people usually expect he’s looking for dinner company, not dinner itself. There must be something special on offer if the Professor chooses to opt out of a point-four-second-relay over the phone.

To Rohan’s other side, Constance’s voice carries over the buzz of the general chit chat. “Here you are,” she says in that syrupy, exasperated voice that means she wants something from him.

Rohan tries not to roll his eyes as he turns to face her, his refusal already sitting on the flat of his tongue when his eyes trail up a familiar green dress to a face that is decidedly not Constance’s.

“Hello,” the woman he knows as One-Fifty-Two says.

Behind her, Constance leans sideways, emerging from her silhouette to make herself known. She flashed him a brilliant smile that’s so sharp, he’d cut himself on it if he stopped to think of what it means. He doesn’t though, mostly because he’s still flabbergasted by One-Fifty-Two’s decidedly too close proximity, but also because Constance says, “This is Elaine,” as if she knows her. “We met out in the hall; she’s a consultant for Harper & Sprat too. Isn’t that just the funniest coincidence?” Her fake-delight voice grates on his nerves. To Elaine, she says, “Rohan Khan, my partner, as I was telling you.”

“Pleased to meet you,” he says in an attempt to recover himself. He gestures to the seat beside him. “Do sit with us, _Elaine_.”

Whatever One-Fifty-Two says next, flies over his head, because he’s made it a rule not to socialise with the merchandise, yet here Constance is, shoving his catch of the bloody _year_ straight into his lap. If she weren’t a seat over, he’d lean over to whisper in her ear she’s fired. The desire is as ferocious as heartburn; it crawls up his trachea and makes him squirm, hands squeezed into fists as the acrid taste of resentment floods his mouth.

Constance, seemingly refusing to acknowledge she’s just gotten her feet wet, offers him a sweet smile when she catches his eye, then tips her head to the side to throw a meaningful look past him. Following her gaze, Rohan lands squarely on Professor Zinfandel and his undisguised, unwavering interest.

“Oh no, you didn’t,” he murmurs, fighting the impulse to dig his fingers so deep into his eyes they’ll end up grazing the back of his skull.

“Pardon?” One-Fifty-Two asks, but Constance jumps in before he has the chance to, saying, “Don’t worry about it,” still all smiles.

 Decidedly avoiding the question of who’d bossing around whom in his relationship with Constance, Rohan shifts his focus to the man climbing the stage to kickstart the auction. That woman’s loyalties are mystery, he’s decided so a long time ago. One day, she’ll either feed him to the sharks or inherit his kingdom. But for now, there’s a bid to win.

 

* * *

  

The tiles in the mortuary produce a pleasant echo so that her operetta playlist booms in layers. DeAnna hums along, the sound of her own voice reverberating in the cavities of her skull soothing in the face of an afternoon headache. She’s so preoccupied with her last patient of the day, she doesn’t notice the door opening and closing at the far end of the room until someone says: “You’re not Dr Armstrong.”

Startled, she drops her instrument. It bounces off the body she’s working on onto the table before it falls to the floor and narrowly misses her foot. She’s lucky it isn’t a scalpel (not that even that would cut through her shoes), but the fright has already dispatched a wave of adrenaline on the basis of medical school horror stories alone and she sighs as her heartrate shoots mercilessly through the roof, doubling her headache.

Irritated, she turns around to regard her uninvited visitor – no scrubs or lab coat and no badges – and deems her not to be staff. “Can I help you?” she asks.

It sounds like a challenge, but her counterpart doesn’t seem to be phased by that. “I’m afraid not,” she says, “It’s a personal matter.”

“Well, he retired two weeks ago, so I’m afraid you are in the wrong place. Unless your matter concerns his position at this facility, in which case, I am his successor.”

That information seems to change something in the other woman, because she takes a breath to respond and then doesn’t, studying DeAnna thoughtfully instead, her mouth open with what she isn’t saying. It’s an uncomfortable, intense silence and DeAnna looks away under the weight of it, clearing her throat.

“I think we may have gotten off on the wrong foot,” the woman says eventually. “I am here to collect a parcel. An _eight-digit-parcel_ , to be precise.”

“Oh,” DeAnna says dumbly and the other woman flashes her a pleasant smile. “Yes, of course. I was, uh, expecting someone else.” The notebook specified a man of medium build, five foot ten, middle-aged.

“He doesn’t do pick-ups anymore,” the woman says, flashing the kind of smile that says, _You poor thing, left out of the lop again_. What she actually does say, is: “I expect we’ll be seeing more of each other.” She offers a hand. “I’m Connie.”

“Dr Wilkes,” DeAnna says, holding up her own, bloody and gloved hands in lieu of a handshake.

Lowering her hand, Connie asks, “The parcel?”

“Oh um, this way, please.”

She peels off the gloves and shoves them into a yellow waste bin before she rushes through her hand-washing, uncomfortable leaving Connie standing there scrutinizing the procedural noticeboard ten feet away, as if knowing the details of DeAnna’s work is too intimate.

“Do you have a first name as well?” Connie asks without taking her eyes off the board.

It’s probably for the best, because by now, DeAnna’s openly and rather impolitely _staring_.

“It’s just… this is a rather tightknit community and ‘Dr Wilkes’ is so _incredibly_ formal, don’t you think?”

DeAnna doesn’t point out she seemed to address her predecessor by his title even though it would be the easy way out. Instead she says: “I don’t see why it matter. This is a business exchange, after all.”

“Never heard of networking?”

“I work with the dead, so no,” DeAnna says. It makes the corner of Connie’s mouth twitch and she narrows her eyes at the noticeboard as though DeAnna’s committed an offense in provoking that reaction.

Not knowing what to say in the face of _that_ , DeAnna looks away and murmurs. “It’s DeAnna. My name is DeAnna.”

“Pleased to meet you, DeAnna,” Connie says, turning her head to look at DeAnna as she turns the name over in her mouth.

Drying her hands on scratchy blue paper towels, DeAnna asks, “Do you have your receipt?”

“I’ve memorised the digits, as recommended.”

“That works. I only ask because most people don’t do what’s recommended, but that definitely works.”

She reaches for the walk-in storage fridge door as Connie rattles off the numbers, both of them well aware it’s a superfluous gesture. It isn’t as though there are enough parcels to cause a real mix-up, but security is security, so she double checks.

“Here you go,” DeAnna says, passing over a paper bag with the partial remains of a twenty-two-year-old woman inside, wrapped in two layers of plastic and a zip lock bag.

“Thank you.”

The parcel disappears in Connie’s handbag and DeAnna nods, expecting her to leave. When she doesn’t DeAnna asks: “Do you know the way out?”

“Yes,” Connie says without hesitation.

“Okay, so-”

“I was just wondering – and this is a personal offer – if you ever want to have dinner…”

DeAnna’s eyes flick to the paper bag.

“ _Not_ _this_ , obviously,” Connie says. “It isn’t mine. Like I said, personal offer.”

DeAnna considers her, considers the business their both wrapped up in, the piece of cadaver she’s just passed to a woman who’s apparently asking her out on a date now.

“I’ll consider it,” she says because it feels like the correct amount of commitment for a situation that’s fundamentally so strange.

“All right,” Connie says. “Until the next delivery then, Dr D.”

“Yes.”

Connie nods and takes off, two backwards steps before she turns and strides off. By the door, she turns back one more time and says: “By the way, I never extended an offer like this to Dr Armstrong. In case you were wondering. I’m not looking for a favour.”

“Got it.”

“Great,” she says and is gone.

DeAnna picks the forceps off the floor.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on twitter at @shippress.


End file.
